Caring About Prairie

Blue Aster

Prairie Partners recognizes that prairies are very special places; native prairie is an ecosystem like no other. There you will find a complex web of life that includes birds, plants and microorganisms. Sadly, it is a vanishing resource. The incentive to convert remaining prairie to cropland is higher than ever, given the needs for food, feed, fiber, and fuel. Yet many of our surviving prairies are on soils that are too wet, too saline, too rocky, or too highly erodible to be productive cropland. Nevertheless, rising commodity prices make it tempting to try to grow crops on such soils. Prairies that are not converted to cropland are still subject to fragmentation by wind farms or converted to other non-agricultural uses such as landfills and junkyards. Loss of prairie is the loss of the native plants; plants that built the rich soils supporting today's agriculture. Loss of prairie also leads to loss of numerous bird species that need grasslands for nesting and migration stopovers. There are many reasons to care about prairie and it is especially important to remember that once a prairie is lost we cannot get it back.